Buying a personal dedicated server

well....i would call myself computer savy as i know quite a bit of c++, along with years and years of tinkering around....but i was thinking about buying a server, and basically using it like a prostitute....whoring out its space to the highest bidder like a motel room or something, as this is anything but new im just wondering if it would be verry cost effective with the aditional bandwith i would need as i only expect each server (if their ever would be more than one, or it it works in the 1st place) to collect anywere from 100 - 400 dollars a month (id get another server it it were 400) with a payout of about 200 for possible advertisement or for the first five months......

should i expect to buy more shit that i dont need?

i mean, a domain name is a given, but theirs not like, a server permit or anything is their?......how much would extra bandwith cost anyways

 

Hmm theres more to it than that, for one thing if you are renting space on it to someone, I take it you mean like hosting websites or applications etc, then you must be able to guarantee maximum uptime, so then you go to your service provider and put it on a business rate line where they guarantee a fix for any problem THEY have in 3 hours max - you need to state that you are a hosting service and then they give you the most expensive deal as you are re-selling their bandwidth in effect

Can you be a bit more specific in your posts as you dont come across as being at all clear as to its purpose. to make $200 a month you need about 5 customers if you are going to compete with big hosting companies and then theres the price of the software - for $40 a month a professional hosting co would offer cpanel which beats the socks off anything else and the licenses for that - ha well you work it out ( hundreds if not thousqands a year)
then you need to have absolutely brilliant support services 24 hours a day - with maximum uptime - no taking more than 1 hour to fix any problem - and most problems sorted in 10 mins then you need backup servers and 2 separate (at least 2) separate lines to the internet for failover incase one of them goes down - you'll neet smtp and pop servers and all the other types of mail server - then you need dns and proxy servers, ftp servers and all the bits and peices to keep that lot running

to make $200 a month youre looking at spending an absolute minimum of $4000 to set up with a monthly outlay of something like $800 for overheadsand thats if all your operating systems and software is pirated or cheap (if youre gona take it seriously and not rip people off by pirating or selling shoddy goods then things aint cheap) also if you host at a domestic address you will invalidate your home insurance as you are operating a business and with all that gear switched on 24 hours if you get a fire then you are up shit creek with no paddle

so you really got to have about 30 customers to break even
I'm absolutely certain it can be done cheaper but not if you want to offer a good product Of course you could vertualise everything but thats at great risk to everyones data for which you would need to sign the data protection act in your country

All figures here are the very roughest of estimates

Yeah it can be done but you really wont get anyone to pay for services if what you offer isnt reliable, cheap, or up to standard

Also you will need some form of business insurance to cover any legal claims against you by your customers

 

it can be complicated to run a dedicated web server. i am learning about all that snaz in my Networking class in college.

you need:

- multiple machines with lots of power and memory
- two seperate internet services (or 1 if you can get 100+ mb upload connection; stable)
- most likely RAID for storage cause you dont want to ruin a customers bussiness
- web address
- most of all: LINUX

if you want to save money then get Linux and learn everything about hosting with Linux. it is free to use Linux however you want and completely legal. Linux can use the free/open source web server porgrams too. and it is more secure. and more stable. and has longer uptimes. and faster. and more dependable... well, lots more than that stuff but i wont list everything. Mac and OSX is fine but the hardware is expensive. Sun Microsystems has some good equipment too, but learn Solaris first.

other things you need are:
- knowlege! (of the OSI model, networking, just learn everything)
- time
- money

 

ok.....ok.....i give up..........

my life is over.....im driving off the nearest cliff

could i at least host my OWN website on it for cheap?...i mean i could do a thing or two with lunux as i wouldnt want people going on my personal computer to access my website, wich is the reason for the server...a domain name would be what...like 10 bucks? , and the bandwith, would probly be reasonable.....

but it would probly make more since to start a website on someone elses server and pay the 40 bucks a month instead of the aditional bandwith fees..wouldnt it.... 8/

and say i decided to sell shirts or something on my website.......
couldnt i just have fineprint up the ass, so i couldnt get sued.....

 

get some copyright and a lawyer to write the fine print.

yeah, you could make your own site. i thought about doing something like that too.

 

Dont give up the idea - just modify your plans a bit - I didnt mean to put you off completely but I did mean to sort of say "well depends what you want to do. You cant dream about overnight being a competitive hosting company if all you got is a dell server and a domestic broadband connection".
BUT YOU CAN MAKE A START IN THAT DIRECTION ! You dont need expensive servers to run test networks - or to host for friends etc - most of my test servers are old pentium 3 desktop machines (shit, I even got 2 pentium 2's)
I would suggest you run some version of a linux enterprise server - my personal fave is Suse, because that is owned by Novell, who in turn are big players in networking
you may like or prefer Red Hat, but anyway whatever you choose make sure its one that serious companies would use. Get to learn how to build and run a
Domain controller
Web server
Sendmail
Fetchmail
Qpopper (or some other pop3 server)
Squid (proxy server)

This is not as much work as you think and inside 1 year you will be well on your way to understanding a modern business network. I would say get as many proper servers as you can but where you cant afford it - go buy a cheap but decent second-hand pentium 3 desktop to learn this stuff on (BUT NOT ANYTHING BY COMPAQ OR PACKARD-BELL !!!!) for some reason those two companies desktops are crap and wont run a lot of server stuff.
Then just ask your broadband supplier for a fixed IP address and within a few hours or days you will have enought to be hosting at least your own stuff and a few friends files etc and learn a great deal into the bargain - perhaps even operate some sort of public ftp service free or something so you can learn what the problems are etc

Plus you will get all the help I can give if you post here or PM me - so I would say start small and grow your network from the ground up and within 18 months - 2 years - who knows, you may have accumulated enough experience, hardware, and ideas to make a business, but save a bit of cash as that always helps if you want to start hosting.

 

for hosting your system should have enough resources enough memory for instance and processor power....
how to forge has nice how to's and tutorials for servers you can check out the perfect for fedora,suse,centos or debian setup....
to host your website you should run your own dns service in order to host your own domain name here is a link
another usefull link
hope it helps....

 

k thanks.....il probly have more questions when the ball starts rolling in around six months to a year..........